


Going Back to Move Forward

by Repeatinglitanies



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dead Body, Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Five is implied to have slept around, pseudoincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 20:54:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20477327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Repeatinglitanies/pseuds/Repeatinglitanies
Summary: Sept 1 Prompt: Free ChoiceNumber Five had long known of humanity’s penchant for self-destruction. So should he use his abilities to jump through time and take it far enough, he could very well witness the end of the world as he knew it. But it never turned out the way he wanted.





	Going Back to Move Forward

Number Five had long known of humanity’s penchant for self-destruction. So should he use his abilities to jump through time and take it far enough, he could very well witness the end of the world as he knew it.

But it never turned out the way he wanted. Out of curiosity, he wanted to go as far as the end of the world. The plan was to then turn back. Become the hero that would reverse engineer humanity’s effect on the planet. And then be with Vanya, who would no doubt lose sleep if he didn’t get back as soon as he left.

In all his arrogance, Five never thought that he would come to a point when he would agree with his adopted father. But it came nonetheless. Because Five found out the hard way that he wasn’t ready. He never was able to go far enough to see the apocalypse. 

He had reached his limit when he landed on the year 2020. Making things worse was the fact that he couldn’t go back to the time he originated from. 

So Five did the only thing he could do. He went back home. At least, to the home that remained on the year 2020. 

As expected, it was still standing. Pogo and Grace still resided there with Luther. Dad had died over a year ago.

They told him what had happened during the years he was gone. What he heard near the end of their tale had him feeling as if he was drowning. Before he passed out, he had a passing thought. The world might still be carrying on but as far as Five was concerned, it had just ended. 

Or rather, it ended for him over a year ago, not long after Dad died. 

When he awoke, he thought of all the things he had promised Vanya. All of which he had intended to fulfill. He remembered comforting her with their plans. Ones that involved leaving the house together and finding their own place near both of their respective schools. They would pursue their dreams while supporting one another.

Growing up in a house that only prized extraordinary abilities, Vanya had always felt out of place. She had often despaired that she would be left all alone. 

Five promised her she wouldn’t. That he would be there for her. He had made a deal with her that if she didn’t have anyone by the time they turned 30, they would get married and start a family together. It wasn’t very romantic. But at thirteen, it was the furthest he was willing to go for Vanya.

Remembering that only made things worse. Five wasn’t there for her when she needed him the most. It was all his fault. It’s now year 2020. The world was still standing and had moved on from 2019. 

But Vanya was gone. Dead. Killed by their other siblings.

And it was only then that Five knew how much and how far he was willing to go for Vanya

The old man had lied to everyone. Vanya did have powers. But because dear old Dad didn’t know how to control it, he decided to suppress it. Pogo said that Reginald believed it to be for the greater good. Five could only snort in derision. It was a pity Reginald Hargreeves chose to be cremated with his ashes supposedly carried by the winds to the furthest corners of the globe. Five would have wanted to visit his grave, if only to take a piss on it.

He didn’t know how to feel about his surviving siblings. Luther, Diego, Allison and Klaus did what they had to do to survive. A part of him understood where they were coming from. Vanya had been manipulated by Leonard Peabody into going off her medication, which in turn activated her powers. Powers that were too great to be controlled by an inexperienced Vanya.

According to Luther, there was no way of getting through to Vanya or for Vanya to stop herself. So she was gone.

To be fair, his other siblings hadn’t been close to Vanya. So they saw permanent neutralization as the only way. Five knew they didn’t kill her out of malice. They probably even felt conflicted about it. Klaus himself hadn’t been heard or seen since the incident. But that didn’t stop Five from resenting them.

All that was left of Vanya was a body in a grave.

Five was still in denial when Luther showed him the tombstone and the grave. Allison came every three months to bring flowers and Diego had been sighted cleaning it. It was ironic that it was only in death when they gave her the attention she so craved. And Five would have laughed if he didn’t feel alternately numb and then angry and then numb again. 

Late that same night, Five went to the graveyard to dig the body up. Five didn’t care that what was left was a decomposing corpse, an image that he knew would haunt him in both dreams and the waking world. But he had to see for himself. He had to know that there was no one waiting for him here so that he could move forward.

Or in Five’s case, backward.

Because the sight of her decayed flesh opposed to the living skin he had just touched yesterday cemented his resolve. It didn’t matter what he had to do, who he had to hurt or sacrifice, he was going back in time. 

Five didn’t particularly care how far back as long as Vanya was still alive.

___________________

Despite Luther and Pogo’s protests, Five left the Academy after he exhausted every book and notes in Reginald Hargreeves’ possession. He was stuck in a timeline without Vanya because he didn’t have enough raw power to go back. So Five went out in search for it.

He followed every lead no matter how unlikely. He made a lot of contacts from highly esteemed university professors to shadowy entities of the criminal underworld. There was no task too high or low for Five. 

Five was twenty-six, thirteen years from the day he found out about Vanya, when he crossed paths with the Handler. She offered him a job for her organization, whose main mission is to protect the timeline and ensure it stays on course. They’ve been observing him for some time. According to the white-haired woman, Number Five had inadvertently developed his steady following back in her organization. So they ran up the numbers which basically said it would be to the Commission’s interest to hire him.

Once she demonstrated the powers of her suitcase, Five accepted almost immediately. But not before making calculations of his own. There was no way this organization would let him save Vanya. They were committed to keeping the timeline free of a Vanya-caused apocalypse. As long as the Commission exists, any attempt to save her would only end in failure. Because as far as Five was concerned, keeping Vanya alive would be meaningless if Vanya would be required to look over her shoulder for the rest of her life.

Thus, the Commission, and everyone else that worked under its aegis, had to go.

Planting the seeds of its destruction wasn’t that hard, especially when Five realized the Handler wasn’t joking on the amount of admirers he accumulated in the Commission. Five would have much preferred to threaten and torture rather than seduce and cajole. But he was a pragmatist to the very core.

So it was that the Handler woke up one night to find Commission headquarters in a blaze and Number Five gone from her bed.

By then, three years had passed for Five. And in that span of time, he had managed to stir up long suppressed office politics that resulted in an impressive, byzantine-level of backstabbing that was both literal and metaphorical. He had weakened a timeless organization from the ground up.

And by the time The Handler and whatever remained of the Commission caught up to him in the suitcase storage, it was too late. Five had destroyed all suitcases but one, activated the building’s self-destruct sequence and made sure to have the whole place on lockdown before using the sole remaining suitcase to make a speedy exit.

________________

The suitcase sent him to 2019. Reginald Hargreeves had killed himself in an effort to bring the Academy back together. It was the day of his funeral and all surviving members had gathered to either pay their respects or make sure the old man was really dead. And that included Vanya.

He had waited so long for this moment that he didn’t care what the others thought. Five moved to gather her into his arms. He intended to hold her so tightly that he didn’t think he’d ever be able to let her go. Throughout the years, he wondered what Vanya would do upon seeing him again. Would she even recognize him? And if she did, would she still care? Or would she feel so betrayed by his seeming abandonment that she wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him?

“Five? It’s you. You’re back.”

Tears were forming in Vanya’s eyes. He expected to have to rush to her. But she beat him to it. The ferocity of her embrace only lead him to reciprocate. Everything in Five’s world came right again.

“Marry me.”

Everyone reacted before Vanya did. Commenting on how inappropriate it was for Five to do that on the day of their father’s funeral.

But Five didn’t care. 

By the look on her face, Vanya thought he had gone crazy. But once the time to pay respects was done, and Five termed that loosely due to how it was cut short because of infighting between Diego and Luther rather than any actual emergency, he accompanied Vanya back to her apartment.

He planned for the shortest courtship in the world. But Vanya thought that he was moving too fast. So he decided to tell the truth, or something as close to the truth as possible.

He told her how he went to the future. That he found absolutely nothing but a bleak tomorrow due to an apocalypse. And to Five, that may as well be the truth. Because a world without her was a world as good as dead to him.

He told her that all the years he spent in the future were years he dedicated to getting back to her. Living all those years alone made him realize that there was no one else he had wanted to spend the rest of his life with. That was why he didn’t want to waste time beating around the bush. Five already knew what he wanted as soon as he returned to her. And if she would take a chance on him, he would make sure that she wouldn’t live to regret it.

Five would like to think it would be his earnestness that would get through to her instead of the desperation that was somewhere beneath the surface of his words. He couldn’t bear it if she pitied him. Just as much as if she chose to turn him down. Maybe even more.

For the first time in a while, he began to wonder if Vanya’s affection for him was all in his head. What if she didn’t feel the same way he did? It wouldn’t change his love for her. But he’d be lying if he said that he wouldn’t be drowning his sorrows in alcohol afterward.

“All right. I’ll marry you. But only after three months. If you still feel the same way, we’ll get married.”

Vanya gave him a shy smile brightened by the bright red blush on her cheeks. It made Five’s heart skip a beat. But he didn’t fail to notice the worry in her eyes. She tried to hide it but Vanya was never good at keeping her feelings from Five. A part of her didn’t trust his offer. She was worried that he’d change his mind. He didn’t blame her. 

Five would use the next three months to reassure her that his love for her was true and everlasting. He would have to tell her about her powers. Five did not relish having to do that. But Vanya had a right to know. And whatever happened afterward, whether he could help her control her powers or cause the end of the world with his failure, it wouldn’t matter. As long as they were together.


End file.
